My First Memory

A Memory of Sunderland.

I was sitting in a tall pram outside my grandfather's pie shop (Pyburns') and men were herding cattle down the High Street to some abattoir, I put my hand out and felt the side of one the cows and to this day can feel the scratchie feel of its short coat. I must have been about one and a half years old. I also remember I was 10 and my brother Brent was 8 and we went in search of a pet tortoise and after going into one or two shops we ended up in the basement of a big old building, I think it was a picture house that had been bombed and taken over by stall owners. and it was there we purchased Tommy our one legged tortoise.